Table Of ContentAfter
Plaget
Eduardo Marti and
Cintia ROdI'igUCZ, editors
Copyright© 2012by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick,New
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LibraryofCongressCatalogNumber:2011039337
ISBN:978—1—4128-4165-0
Printed inthe United StatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
After Piaget/ EduardoMartiandCintiaRodriguez,editors.
p.cm.—[Historyandtheory ofpsychology)
1. Piaget, Jean, 1896—1980—Political and social views. 2. Devel-
opmentai psychology. 3. DeveIOpmental psychology—Research—
History. I. Marti,Eduardo. II. Rodriguez,Cintia.
BF713.A332012
155.4'13092—dc23
2011039337
Toour mastersfrom Geneva
Contents
SeriesEditor’sPreface ix
RestoringPiagettothe World: LookingBackto Construct
the Future
lean Valsiner
Preface xvii
Introduction xix
The FertilityofPiaget’sLegacy
CintiaRodriguezandEduardoMart!
Part1.BeyondPiaget’sConstructivism
1 FromConstructivismto Neuroconstructivism:The
Activity-Dependent Structuringofthe HumanBrain 1
Annette Karmdofl-Smith
2 PiagetasaPioneerofDialecticalConstructivism:Seeking
DynamicProcessesfor HumanScience 15
leanPdscudieLeone
3 ContributionsofPiagetianConstructivismto Social
Interactionism 43
jean-Paid Bronckdrt
Part2.FromAnimalto InfantandChildDeveIOpment
4 PiagetandtheComparativePsychologyofAnimal
Cognition 59
Jacques Vducldir
5 BabyAssault onPiaget 71
PhilippeRocha:
6 ClinicalApproach ofthe PrematureInfant,
Evaluations,andDevelopmentalCare 83
AndreBailinger
7 PiagetandConsciousness:Retrospectand Prospect 95
FranciscoPans,PaulL.Ham's,andMarcdeRosnoy
Part3.SemioticChallengesalongDevelopment
8 TheFunctionalPermanenceoftheObject:A Product
ofConsensus 123
CintidRodriguez
9 Thinkingwith Signs:FromSymbolicActionsto
ExternalSystemsofRepresentation 151
EduardoMarti
10 The Discoveryofa“PiagetianChild”inLiteracy
Development 171
EmiliaFerreiro
Part4.DevelopmentthroughEducation
I1 FromIndividualtoDidacticMicrogenesis:Studieson
SituatedKnowledgeTransformations 187
Madden Shade-Robert
12 “ChooseTwoorThree ScapegoatsandMakeYour
,-
Point!"ShouldI?CriticalThoughtsonaFabulous
ExperienceandItsHeritage 207
Anne-Nelly Perret-Clemson:
ListofContributors 227
Index 229
Series Editor’s Preface
RestoringPiagettotheWorld:Looking
BacktoConstructtheFuture
This book is a gem. It breaks through the usual “Piaget-bashing”
discoursethathasbeenaroundinpsychologysincethe 19803andhas
become a kind ofa fashion among the many followersof the socio-
cultural approachesthat captured the North American educational
sciencesafterPiagetlosthisprominence.Insteadofadvancingideasm
going beyond Piaget and other—by now fashionableureinvented
thinkers such as Lev Vygotsky or Mikhail Bakhtin, they turned to
Piaget’sheritage andscreamedinfullvoice:“Piagetwaswrong!"The
gentle old man from Geneva—who was holding on to his pipe and
everysummerwentupintothe Alps towrite yet anotherbook—was
attributedtoallkindsoffaults. Hewassupposednottohaveconsid-
eredthe“socialcontext"ofthecognitiveprocesses—untiltheEnglish
language usersgotaccesstohisSociologicalStudies(Piaget, 1995)to
findoutthatthiscritiquewasbasicallywrong(MaysandSmith,2001}.
Socialissuessurroundingthemindwereofmuchinteresttothenatural
scientistwhoseobservationalskillsfound itsbeginningin classifying
mollusksattheLakeofNeach-ate].Ontheotherextreme,Piagetwas
considered “out of date” for not recognizing the supposedly inborn
natureofmanycognitivefunctions.
Trading accusations between self-organized “camps"ofscientists
ofOppositebelief systemsisnotproductivefornewideas.Insteadof
such ideological discourses,what is needed is a substantive look at
theactualachievementsofthecarefulthinkerandexperimenterfrOm
Genevaandtheactualadvancementsofhisideasafterhisdeath.This
book fillsthisgap. Itbrings together the new developmentsofideas
and research practices that have grownoutofPiaget’stradition and
provides a retrosPective glimpse into the intellectual atmospheres
ix
AfterPiaget
of the different periods atwhich the authors encountered Piaget in
theirGenevadays.Inaway,itisthecomplementtoFernandoVidal’s
deep analysis of Piaget’sformative years-wAfter Piaget is clearly the
other sideofPiagetbeforePiaget(Vidal, 1993).Continuityofideasis
important to chartout(Valsiner,2010b)-—historyofascience isnot
a“depository ofuseless efforts”but areservoir ofperSpectivesonce
invented and maybe tried out, but abandoned. This in history has
often happened for extra-scientific reasons—Jack of funding, pres-
ence of aggressive competitors, ideological watchdogs of existing
regimes, or political events that crush both these regimes and the
intellectual work that had been going on. Piaget’slegacy, ofcourse,
was not hindered by revolutions or ideological constraints—in the
quietude of the Swiss environment, he could work productively
with his students over decades Yet different decadesbrought with
them different emphases in thework—the present book15a living
testimony forthat
., ._
Jean Piagetwasaheadofhistime.While‘'beinginterdisciplinary”
becamefashionable1nthesocialsciencesby theendofthetwentieth
century,Piagethadbeeninnoneedforsuchgreed.Hehadputthatidea
intopracticefourdecadesbefore—hebuilttherealrelationsbetween
disciplinessincethe1950s.Hisbiologicalbackgroundfortifiedthedeep
convictionthatpsychologyassciencecanonlybeoneofinterdisciplina
arykind(Piagetand[(amii,1978).Hecreatedatrulyinterdisciplinary
center—ethatofICGE(InternationalCentreofGeneticEpistemology}——
where synthesisofideas from various disciplines happened. Talking
with mathematicians—rather than with statisticiansfiprovided the
necessary creative impetus for Piaget’s own development of formal
operationsforthescienceofgeneticepistemology.Ofcourse,onecan
gowronginsuchsynthesisaswell—Piaget’sendorsementoftheBour-
baki mathematics(seeAubin, 1997,pp.317—20)tookhimawayfrom
thefocusofhisyoungeryearsonbuildingadevelopmentallogicalong
the lines of lames Mark Baldwin (Valsiner, 2001, 2010a). Bourbaki’s
mathematicscannotbedevelopmental—givenitsaxiomaticbases.Yet
it was the best that mathematics as a discipline could give psychol-
ogy’sepistemologymexceptforthatofthedevelopmentalperSpective.
Piagetunderstood that by the endofhislife—in his discussionswith
IlyaPrigogineonirreversibilityandinfinity(Prigogine, 1982).
Without doubt, Piaget’s systematic efforts to bring basic math-
ematics into genetic epistemology—bypassing the operation of
quantificationu-was a laudable innovation. It did follow the final
R
SeriesEditor'sPreface
suggestion ofJames Mark Baldwinback in 1930—longafterleaving
thearenaofpsychology:
The . . .quantitative method, brought over into psychology from
theexactsciences,physicsandchemistry,mustbediscarded;forits
idealconsistedin reducingthe morecomplexto the moresimple,
thewholeintoitsparts,thelater-evolvedtotheearlier-existent,thus
denyingoreliminatingjust thefnctorwhichconstitutedorrevealed
whatwastrotbygenetic.Newermodesofmanifestationcannotbestated
inatomictermswithoutdoingviolencetothemoresyntheticmodes
whichobservationreveals.(Baldwin.1930,p.7,emphasesadded)
Baldwin was right in 1930—Piaget tried an alternative pathway to
mathematics in the 1950s—603-—yet in our present day, we see very
littleprogressinovercomingthe limitations ofthe statisticalways of
creating psychological knowledge Instead of abandoning statistical
methodology asaxiomatically misfittingthe phenomena ofpsychol—
ogy (Michell,1999),weWeill
method as ifitwere the guarantorof thematifidstatumflpsycho-
logicifinvestigations.Nothingcanbefartherfromthetruth—science
is notificated by forcing the general linear model to, in principle,
nonlinear phenomena. The mind Operates by nonlinear principles
(PucheNavarro,2009,Tsuda,2001).Itisthephenomenonthatisthe
criterion for deciding what science is and what it is not—from that
standpoint, the best example of “anecdotal evidence” in psychology
isthe inventionanduse ofthe IQtests]!
Piagethadpredecessorsmgiantsonwhoseshouldershecouldcom~
fortably climb. James Mark Baldwin (2010) occupies a special place
in the work of Jean Piaget (Chapman, 1988;Doise, 1989;Mays and ‘
Smith, 2001). Both his “genetic logic” and the primacy of the social
asthebasis forovercomingtheegocentricityofthechild’smindwere
the common roots for both him and LevVygotsky (Piaget,2000). If
weweretoaddtothistheworkofHeinzWerner (Valsinelr,2005)and
Edwin Holt(Charles,2011),we canbegin to see how the twentieth
century thought in developmentalpsychologywas oriented to make
senseoftheprocessesofdiiferentiationofthedevelopingsubjectand
herorhis immediatesurroundings.Further,growthofsuchdifferen-l
tiation idea is in the realm of semiotics—sign-making processes in
everyday life (chapter7—Marti,2012;chapter 8—Rodriguez, 2012).
Thatextension—tothefunctionalsemiosisincognition—buildsonthe
best traditions ofPiaget’s childstudies,while extendingthose to the
xi
AfterPiaget
understandingofthemeaningfulnatureoftheenvironments.Piaget’s
perspectivesfitwellwithourcontemporaryinterestsinsociocultural
psychology—-itwouldbedeeplyunproductivetopresentthe“Piaget-
ian School”asarivaltothevaried socioculturaltraditionsofGeorge
HerbertMeadorLevVygotsky.
As the readers of this book will find out (inchapter 2—Pascual~
Leone, 2012), Piaget can be viewed as a thinker who was moving
toward the adoptionofthe dialectical perspective in developmental
psychology—advanced further by others (e.g., Riegel, 1973). The
move toward creation of new dialectical models for psychology—
bypassingboththeHegelianandMarxistimplementationsandtaking
the qualitativesynthesisOfnew formsseriously—isthe hallmark for
thefuture (Valsiner.2012,chapter 10).IntermsofPiaget’slegacy,the
developmentofsuch modelscentersonjust one—but key—term1n
Piaget’sthinking:equilibrationmajordnteiprogressingequilibration)
Evenifthatterm issometimesmentionedwhenPiaget’5workispre—
sented to various audiences, it has never been elaborated to its full
implications.Theunityofassimilationandaccommodationprocesses
involvestensionthatservesasthe“engine”forequilibration—thestate
ofwhichcanneverbereachedbecauseitmovesfurtherawayfromthe
equilibratingsubject.Reachingan equilibrium for aliving organism
is an impossible outcome—it is like the effortto reachthe horizon.
Thehorizon alwaysremainsaheadtotheseekerOfthegoal.Bringing
thecentralnotionofthedthbesrs—dwcmleqfidmm
negation—(negaationofthen1:gation)—intothemodelsofequilibration
majordntewouldbearelevantbream'1nbuildinguponPiaget’s
heriflge..Thatwou dcorrectthelimitationPiagetsadoptiOnoflogic—
Offhe Boolean (Aristotelian) kind—had: the reliance on the Law of
theExcludedMiddle.TheLawofExcludedMiddle—tOgetherwithall
Aristotelian (classical)logic—does notallow for the investigation of
development. Itexcludes precisely what needstobe includedu—“the
middle”!AlLdE’velongnt takes placein between the gpppsites, and
emergenceofnew formsstems from the tension betweenOpposites
Wyntbesisofthe newform.Humandevelopmenthag;
pens in the middle!TWhe thweorld, and—of
thture—are1nWt15temporarily
overcome—“tolead to new tensionsAn 10 icthataxiomaticall --de-
CEFE'themiddletobeexcludedwplymisfit ortetaskofmaking
senseofdevelwut.
